Calamity Day No. 6; Fun with RIT dye

Well we have now passed the allowed five calamity days and will have to start making them up over spring break. No skin off my back since I'll be on maternity leave! This is the first time ever in my 21 years of education (thirteen as a student, and eight as a teacher) that we have ever gone over five calamity days. That should tell you something about this winter! For the past two days we've been under a Level Two Snow Emergency, which means you are only supposed to be on the roads if you HAVE to. I don't think going shopping qualifies as "HAVE TO" unfortunately. There's something at the thrift store that I want to pick up for my friend; hopefully it's still there by the time I get around to getting there. I am kicking myself for not getting it last time... actually the last TWO times. I can't believe I passed it up TWICE.

Anyway, last night I had some good times with RIT dye. Back in college, several Columbus Kmarts were closing, and I got a few RIT dyes for very cheap. I don't know if dye ever expires, but this dye would be about ten years old. Plus, when I bought it, it looked like it might have been sitting on the shelf for quite awhile. The "royal blue" label had faded to a sort of periwinkle color. But I decided to take a chance on it, and I had pretty good results.

I don't know what is wrong with me that I cannot for the life of me remember to take "before" pictures. I fully intended on showing you what these items looked like before the blue dye. The baby items were mine when I was a youngin'. My great-grandma crocheted/knitted them. Actually, they might have even belonged to my dad when HE was a baby. I also dyed a cream colored outfit my sister-in-law got me last year for Christmas. I wore it as-is all last year, however my undies had a tendency to show through the pants. They're technically PJs so I didn't mind showing off my bloomers when it's just the hubby seeing it. Now that I'm hugely pregnant however, I've decided to wear this outfit out and about because it's comfy and it fits (and no one would know they're PJs because it looks like a jogging suit). I figure it's no longer proper to show off my underwear. I hope dying the outfit blue will take care of that problem!

The reason I wanted to dye the baby items is because, quite frankly, they were dingy and nasty looking. They were white until time took its toll and turned them into a nasty yellowish color. Also, the blanket is missing its binding, so that will be a job I tackle today. I'd also like to add a little wool felt applique like she does over at Heart Felt. She's absolutely awesome; you should totally check out her work.

Sorry again for the lack of "befores," but here are the "afters!"


This is the baby afghan that Nan made. You can see it really soaked up the dye well.


Compare that with the baby blanket which did not soak up the dye nearly as well. I think I know why... I did it all in the sink in two loads. The second load, which was comprised of the binding-less blanket and the little sweater (below), did not have the benefit of the scalding hot water like the PJs and the aghan had, hence the lighter color. That's okay though- two shades of blue for the price of one, right?!


You can barely tell by this picture that it's blue, although in real life it does look like a soft, baby blue. Wouldn't it look darling with a little felt applique on it? I have two green sweaters and a black one that I've felted... I'm trying to decide what to applique that would make this little sweater not look so feminine.

Snowed in and Stir Crazy

Winter, winter, go away. Come back another day! I want to go out shopping but can't leave the house in this crap. Yes, it's pretty, and yes, I don't have to work today because of it, however, enough is enough! So to pass the time I have been reading crafty, upcyling, sewing and thrifting blogs and doing a little crafting of my own. Here's one of those big altoids can that I spray pained with black chalkboard paint. I figure it will be a good place to keep chalk and Joel can take it with him on trips for enjoyment once he gets older.



I also tried my hand at making liquid soap out of umpteen little hotel bars of soap. As it turns out, it was pretty easy. I simply broke up the little bars a few at a time and placed them into my KitchenAid blender with a little water. This made a pasty consistency which I sat aside until later. After I had converted all the bars into paste, I then put it back into the blender a scoop at a time with more water, until I got the consistency I wanted. Voila, free soap!



I actually have twice this much, however the rest is in plastic containers (an old Tang container and a large Softsoap refill container) which just weren't as pretty to photograph.


I also have been working on paper crafts these past few days. I was inspired by Meg of Montessori by Hand to make some stick puppets for Joel when he is older.
Here's what I've done so far. I traced around some animal pictures I found online, put them onto cardstock that I had laying around free in the recycle bin, and began ripping up newspaper strips for the paper mache. Here is one layer done, a few layers to go (mine aren't quite laying flat for some reason...)



Lastly, I wanted to make my birthday-girl friend a notepad of recycled papers from my stash, however I didn't really like the way they turned out. I guess I'll just keep them because they are functional, just not gift-give-away worthy.

My stash of recycling... yes, I'm ashamed to admit it but I sometimes shop at Walmart.


One side of the notepads...


And the other side.


A closeup of the wedding one- another friend of ours is getting married in a few months, and the birthday girl and I are both in the wedding. I just thought this was funny.


When making those notepads, I cut out the scrap papers all to the same size, clipped them together with binder clips, and used regular old Elmers Glue at the top to hold them together. This part worked okay. To make the front and back covers, I used remnant cardstock (from old birthday cards, boxes, etc) and decoupaged magazine pages onto it. This part worked okay too, except for some wrinkling. But then I had a hell of a time getting the front and back to connect to one another. If I had it to do over again, I would have made it one large piece and folded it, however I didn't have any cardstock onhand that large. This was a "use-what-I-have" type project so I didn't want to buy anything for it. Then the next problem I had was getting the stack of papers to adhere to the cover. I tried regular glue, hot glue, double sided tape... nothing I tried made me happy. So that's why I'll be keeping these guys for myself!

Pregnancy, Nesting, and Sewing

I'm almost 36 weeks! Hooray for making it to the under-a-month mark until my due date! I was reading an old post from Sep. where I had measured myself and posted it. I measured myself a couple weeks ago, and at that point I was 41-43-45. I measured myself again yesterday, and I was 42-47-46. How depressing is that? Last week I tipped the scales at 204 pounds. Eek.

Anyway, I've been busy at work sewing this past week. I made some beanbags and heating pads from scrap fabric and leftover feed corn that I had in the garage. I am going to make a tic-tac-toe mat for Joel to play with the beanbags. I'm simply sewing large nine patches together, separated with strips of black fabric in between to make the tic tac toe lines. I wasn't sure how the heating pad would work, but I microwaved it for two minutes, and it stayed hot for quite a while. It's coming in handy with all the aches and pains this pregnant body has been having! Just remember when making it to use 100% cotton. I was able to repurpose an old green shirt of mine that no longer fits to make a heating pad for the neck, and some thrifted curtains to make a rectangular one for my knees, back, etc. I also will be making my friend one whose birthday is coming up this week. I'll probably work on that tomorrow since I just found out we're having a snow day, so no work for me!



Corn for the stuffing


The finished product

Over the weekend I also created a memory game for Joel using iron-on transfer paper, white cotton from the above repurposed curtains, and some scrap blue and white fabric for the backing. I'm not totally happy with how this turned out, however Joel will be young and won't notice the imperfections! This task was a pain in the butt, by the way. If I had known how much of a pain it was, I wouldn't have made so many pieces. Jason's family is huge, and I made one (well two actually) for each person in his family and mine until I ran out of iron-on transfer paper. I still have three more people to go, so six more tiles to create. When completed, there will 38 tiles. We'll have to pull out only a few family members at a time because Joel would never be able to handle 38 tiles as a little tot. I should have just done Mommy, Daddy, the four grandparents, and the two great-grandmas. That would have been 16 tiles and would have been much more doable! I'm also not thrilled with how the colors came out. Maybe it's my printer, but most of them turned out very bland :(


The great-grandmas


Jason, his sister, and parents


My parents and me


Five of the nine pieces for the tic tac toe mat.


I love me a good Spam Fabric! If this doesn't say "class," I don't know what does!

Things I Want!

The weather sucks here! I guess I shouldn't complain because at least I live in Ohio where the wind chill is only supposed to reach negative twenty or thirty... some places it's negative forty or fifty! Hubby's two-year-old car wouldn't even start this morning; luckily I have a four day weekend and so I didn't need my car. I won't be going anywhere anyway since the temp is currently -11, and that's not even taking into account the windchill! I do need to go to the grocery because we need chicken, however I think that can wait!

Anyway, I'm holed up crafting, sewing, and reading blogs for inspiration. So here are some things that I absolutely have to either have or make:
Joel would absolutely love this.

Upcycle your magazines and turn them into gift bows: ingenius! Unfortunately, I don't have any of the brads on hand that you need to make them, and I also have a plethora of gift bows already because I scavenge for them at Christmas and save them all.


I think I'll make these bows when I need a color of bow that I don't already have tons of... I could make some teal and purple ones to go with a wrapping paper I have :)


So what do you do with all those floppy disks so common in the 1990s? Make a handy dandy place to keep your pencils, paper clips, rubber bands, or whatever!


Hey, I have this mirror! It came from Ikea years ago.


Unfortunately, I just redid mine a few weeks ago for the nursery. I painted it green and decoupaged it with rabbit pictures from a thrifted children's book. It turned out cool, but now I have to wait to make this awesome mosaic mirror! Well that's okay because I am sure I don't have enough cards yet to make it anyway. I'll save up and then make it when Joel is too old for cutesy bunny mirrors.


Here's a great way to upcycle vintage yardsticks!



Ok, so Christmas is over. And actually, I'm usually not all that into CD crafts. I liked the idea a colleague of mine had when she hung them around the perimeter of a bulletin board in her classroom. Since I'm a music teacher, that would be a good one for me to do! However, I really like this idea that she came up with! I could totally see many of them strung together to hang over the fireplace.

Rainy Thrifting Expedition

Well hubby has to work on Saturdays, so I figured I'd head out to a couple thrift stores to look for something specific (which of course I didn't find). I want to melt down old crayons and make new ones in either a heart shape or Christmas tree shape, so I was looking for a silicone pan that one would ordinarily bake muffins in, with either of those shapes (or some other cool shape should I run across one). But three thrift stores later, and no luck. I did however, find some great things today!

Things not really worthy of photographing include baby hangers (twenty for 1.80), new-in-the-package Baby's Arrival cards (eight for 50c) and Baby Shower thank you cards (eight for 50c), new-in-the-package toy boats for toddler bathtime for 50c, a firetruck sippy cup for 30c, two Gerber bottle nipples new-in-the-package for 60c, and a new-in-the-package flag pole holder (which I've been meaning to buy for weeks now) for 90c. I got a "Baby Boy" flag, new-in-the-package, a few weeks ago for two dollars when I was out thrifting with buddy Tiara, and now all I need is the flag pole!

Now for the items that are photo-worthy: (1) a drapery panel of a really cute western theme for $2. I probably won't use it as drapes, but instead I'll most likely cut it apart for the fabric and make some pillowcases or something out of them for Joel when he outgrows his crib. I hope he likes the western theme because that's what he's going to get. I've already picked up a few other things in the past in the western theme, including a smaller piece of fabric and a horseshoe picture frame. (2) Twelve nose pencil sharpeners, new in the package, for the kids at school. I think middle school kids will get a kick out of them. You stick your pencil up the nose hole and into the sharpener part- ingenious! (3) the best find of the day- several bags of vintage sewing items! They had FOUR BAGS of vintage zippers, still in the original packaging, albeit very old packaging. I decided to just take one bag, and it has at least twenty different zippers in it, of all colors and lengths ($1.50). I also grabbed a bag of vintage double-sided bias tapes, still in the vintage packaging, also for $1.50, and a bag of various sewing goodies like elastic (new), needles, half of a mason jar full of BUTTONS, a seam ripper, an old sewing ruler which had a four-digit telephone number on it (how cool is that?), a vintage thimble still in the original packaging, and a wooden spool of thread. Yes, and it was just a buck fifty! Score!

Ok so this stuff is photo worthy, but I am not going to photograph them right now... sorry!

Advent Calendar Finished

Happy New Year!

I realize that I am a little late in completing my Advent Calendar, however to my credit, I didn't even START it until after Christmas.

I had been thinking about making an advent calendar, however I wasn't sure which way I wanted to go. I had been thinking about making mini stockings to hang over the fireplace, but when I saw these little mitten ornaments, I knew that this was it. I was also very happy that I had everything that I needed in order to make these little sweeties: felt (I just got some more for a baby blocks project at Michael's for 50% off), buttons, thread, and ribbon.

Here's a little peek at some of the buttons I pulled out to complete this project.


Here are some of the stockings mid-completion.










I'm pretty pleased with how these turned out. Now I am going to pack them away today with the rest of the Christmas stuff and definitely use them next year!

Mmmm... spoiled milk

So we had an entire half gallon of milk that's sell by date was a week ago. Jason said it was starting to smell pretty funky, so I figured it was time to use it up. I'm just sitting here on the couch using my new massaging thing Jason got me, waiting for the last item to finish baking, so I figured I'd get online and give you some recipes to use up milk. Just what you always wanted, isn't it? Don't mention it; it's my Christmas gift to you :)

So here are the milk recipes I whipped up in order to use up the milk rather than dumping it down the drain:

CREAMED CABBAGE, 1908 [found in an old newspaper]
"Chop cabbage medium fine and cook in salt water until tender; pour off water, add milk and butter to cabbage and thicken with flour mixed to a smooth paste with milk, using amount of thickening according to amount of cabbage. Cook until the consistency of a white sauce." [I didn't follow this to a T... I steamed the cabbage in the microwave- probably not something one would have done in 1908! I also added in some spinach that I had leftover in the fridge, and I dumped in some onion flakes for taste. Oh, and don't forget the S&P! Hubby liked it!]

CHEESE BREAD
2 cups flour
4 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
1/4 grated Parmesan cheese
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.
Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Stir in Cheddar cheese and 1/4 cup Parmesan. Mix together eggs, butter and milk. Add to the dry ingredients. Stir only until moistened. Batter will be somewhat lumpy. Do not over mix.

Pour into a greased 9x5" loaf pan. Smooth down the center with a wet spatula to flatten top. Sprinkle evenly with 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese. Bake about 45 minutes. [Yum, this just came out of the oven, and it looks good!]

APPLE-PINEAPPLE BREAD PUDDING
8 c. bread cubes
2 c. apples, sliced thin
1 (16 oz.) can crushed unsweetened pineapple, do not drain
1/2 c. butter
1 1/2 c. sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 c. milk

Layer into 9 x 13 inch baking dish: bread, apples and pineapple. Cream sugar and butter by hand. Add eggs and milk. Pour over bread and fruit. Sprinkle
lavishly with cinnamon and brown sugar. Decorate with cinnamon apple rings. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Well, I didn't follow this recipe to a T either (I very rarely do). I didn't feel like getting another loaf of bread out from the freezer, so I used up the cinnamon raisin bread that was on the counter (about 4 cups). I also had a dab of crushed pineapple leftover in the fridge, so I used that, plus a whole 20 oz. can. Too much pineapple and not enough bread.... to compensate I lessened the eggs to two and the milk to one cup. I also had made fried cinnamon apples earlier, and decided to use two cups of those rather than slice up fresh apples. I tasted this already, and it's freaking sweet.

And Lastly, for the main course... Ham and Cauliflower Chowder.

First you have to make potato soup, which is always a good thing for using up milk. Plus I still had some potatoes to use up, as well as ham that I froze after Christmas, so this was a triple bonus!

So I chopped up some potatoes (I think 3 bigs ones and 3 small ones) and boiled them in chicken broth (about 6 cups). I also threw in the rest of the carrots I had in the fridge, and a packet of onion soup mix because I don't have any onions on hand. After the potatoes were soft, I semi-mashed them to get a thicker consistency for the soup, however I still wasn't satisfied so I added in some potato spuds to thicken it a bit more.

Keep simmering, and then add about 2 cups milk. I chopped up the leftover ham and threw it in. Lastly, I steamed the cauliflower in the microwave and tossed it in. Voila. Very tasty indeed! It's one of Hubby's Favorites!

So there you have it. Don't waste that milk that's past its prime!